A solo exhibition of exclusive paintings by a renowned artist Samina Ali opened Wednesday at Nomad Art Gallery (NAG).
The exhibition titled ‘Echoes of Silence’ provides the viewer an opportunity on abstract juxtaposition of patterns and storytelling which is symbolic and eyecatching and tradition side by side with modernity.
Samina Ali was trained in fine arts with a major in painting and minors in printmaking and the miniature tradition, her practice evolved to incorporate traditional techniques from the Islamic arts, fusing Vaddri (marbling) and washes along with contemporary collage to create multi-layered works.
According to the curator of the gallery, Nageen Hayat, “Samina’s paintings affirm her contribution to the legacy of Muslim art while, in its essence, being a symbol of modernity and rich aesthetics. The narratives are familiar while she plays with the compositions and imagery to give visual strength and highlight links with local heritage and culture.”
Nageen noticed that these medium to large scale collages are characterized by assemblages of paper, gold and silver leaf, tea and paint washes, and script.
Fascinated by texture, an avid collector of fragments of paper, old photographs, clippings, metal leaf, and even foil wrappings, many of the papers she uses in the elaborate backgrounds are imbued with personal memory.
Cuttings taken from old miniatures are reworked so that they are no longer simply illustrations, but symbolise elements of love, peace, or turmoil, superimposed or inset into the complex surface. In this way, in the present series paintings of birds by Miskeen (a well-known miniature painter during the reign of Jahangir) are used as symbols of peace and love, as well as evoking a sense of nostalgia, she said. She termed the deeply personal works as being a reflection of Samina’s moods and thoughts, and her innate desire for a sense of peace.
Samina claimed to be interested in the harmony between space and form, with collages and calligraphy woven together.
Being closely associated with Islamic history, it’s hard to imagine myself not using the long lost stories which are enclosed in books or museums. To remain in touch with the past is to keep history alive, lost images in time resonating through a flow of vibrant colours and textures, she added.
“The hardest task is in inventing a pictorial language that would convey a personal way of seeing things, while at the same time discovering what the personal vision is. In all this a clear debt to modern art, as is my wish to stress rather than disguise the objective quality, the aesthetic autonomy of the work: initially at least, the response must be to what it is, not to what it is about,” the artist stated.